Rapido Trains Survey

[martyn]

My reply hung up on Edge earlier today.

One of the questions I found a little odd; how much would I pay for a tank engine? And it had the price ranges for the answer.

But personally, should I desire the loco offered, I'd expect, and would pay, rather more for. eg, a Thompson L1 tank, with its outside valve gear, than I would for, eg a J69 (hints, hints) with inside gear. And that would probably span two price ranges of the survey.

martyn

[grumbeast]

Hung on submit for me too unfortunately. I hope it got through ok as I really liked the question that was something like 'Special Thing' or 'Everyday Thing' .. I want Everyday ... every time

G

[njee20]

I thought it was a terrible survey. I'm not interested in steam, so I'm not going to pay anything. Why would I pay more for a model of a preserved loco? I either want it or I don't.

What's the difference between boring utilitarian wagons and exciting ones?

Felt like a bad GCSE survey. Complete with technical glitches.

[Hiawatha]

What's the difference between boring utilitarian wagons and exciting ones?

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[njee20]

  Well yes, ok! But even so... there aren't too many other examples I can think of that would fit into the second category, and surely it would depend entirely on what the wagons were? If I were a steam era modeller the KUAs wouldn't interest me, no matter how rock and roll they were!

Typical survey where it all seemed too vague to actually provide much insight!

[bridgiesimon]

aaargh, same for me! I went all through the survey and then all I got at the end 'Please Wait'!!

Not ideal!

Best wishes
Simon

[Newportnobby]

I thought it was a terrible survey. I'm not interested in steam, so I'm not going to pay anything.

They're currently doing a chip fat fired box on wheels so us steam fans might get a go now

[Steven B]

Worked for me on Firefox.

More mundane wagons please! Whilst four bogie flask wagons, propeller wagons, and gun-sets might look good, they're hardly typical of what was/is seen most of the time.


Maldon East goods yard by Stuart Axe, on Flickr


N7 BR 69680 at Waltham Cross Station c1950s by Paul Kearley, on Flickr

Steven B.

[martyn]

@Steven B

Now if Rapido were to do the N7 and the LNER non corridors (Quint set?-can't tell) in your second photo, that WOULD be a win-win for me!

The more mundane the better.

It was in a model magazine sometime ago that the odd 'special' wagon or coach could lift the general standard of a layout, provided it was relevant to the theme.

But if all the stock was one-offs or rarities, it would become unrealistic.

Martyn

[ahardy]

Afternoon,

Well this thread is a lot to take in!

So - the survey form is a 3rd party company / plug in and its having a few issues - their support team are looking at it for me. However the sheer volume of entries over the last couple of days may have something to do with it. Some browsers seem better than others but we as yet cannot find a specific issue. We have used their plugins for many things and never had an issue until now. Hopefully there will be a resolution soon.

Going back to the survey:

It may not seem obvious why we ask a question this way - but there is some madness to it.

For a start , I'm not going to ask for example:

What would you pay or a class 08?
What would you pay for a class 14?
What would you pay for a class 15?
etc etc etc

It serves little purpose and gives us too much useless data. Likewise asking the after every different propulsion type does not actually give us merit. What we are looking for is generalisations. You may not model steam but still answering the question about what you HOPE to pay for a similar product gives us information.

Likewise I'm not going to define mundane or special wagons - its a generalisation and is deliberately so. We want people to decide what it means to them and give us their gut feeling. Sometimes people read into it too far.

Yes - some of the questions may seem more scale specific than others. However, why not as a question about working fans, or smoke, or sprung buffers in N - who says the technology wont be there in the future to make it work - and when it is do you want to see it or not, or pay for it...

I'm all for looking to see if the N gauge market is out there to be expanded. Please do help us - it would be easy to read this thread, see things described as they have been and think "well lets stick to 00 etc". I am more than happy to help people out if they want to know if their has submission was recorded or not- just ping me a private message with the email you used and I will happily look.

We are a manufacturer that wants to be your friend!

Happy Friday and have a lovely Christmas.

Andy
Rapido Trains UK Operations Manager

[Newportnobby]

@ahardy
Any contact from manufacturers is always welcome, Andy.
Apart from Rapido and RevolutioN everyone else is conspicuous by their absence, thus leaving the impression "you'll get what you're given"

[RailGooner]

.. everyone else is conspicuous by their absence, thus leaving the impression "you'll get what you're given"

Providing that you live long enough in Dapol's case! 

[Papyrus]

I feel sorry for manufacturers sometimes. Most of the time people complain that they don't listen to their customers, then when somebody comes along and does try to find out what they want there are complaints that they asked the wrong questions!

A lot of the questions weren't relevant to me, but I answered as best I could, so I hope it bears fruit. The survey worked fine and I had no problems submitting.

Cheers,

Chris

[Roy L S]

I answered too and I hope it got through, like others it was left hanging at the end. I applaud the attempt to gather some high level data to inform of priorities and acceptable pricing for consumers, but here pitching low may simply make products unviable so I worked on the basis of say a small to medium N tank loco being in the £125-£175 being a given, but inevitably only for a loco that fits my modelling era and region. For a large loco I really wanted like a shiny brand new tool up to date V2 or  A4 with coreless motor and sound in N I would likely go to or beyond the top end of my pricing band.

I put a preference for "mundane" wagons and coaches, here I would be thinking something like Thompson or Gresley suburban coaches as one of the "gaps" in N coaching stock left is such as these.

Anyway, let's see what comes of it, I view it as a positive initiative.

Roy

[Flange Squeal]

I thought it was easy to fill in. I don't know why some folk are so pernickety about such things but there we go 🤷‍♂️